Dear psc1227:

You wrote: ” I feel like he’s the best person I’ve ever been with “- and that may be so. This man may have been the best person you have been with. But I sure hope you can be, in the future, with a better man.

We evaluate other people according to our existing experience with people. If you have experience with disrespectful, abusive people, then someone who is only… mildly abusive, seems, in comparison, as The Best person, and is, in comparison, indeed The Best, better than the others.

You bonded initially over having been cheated: him by his ex wife and you by an ex boyfriend. It is a shame he did not proceed to have empathy for you, an understanding why you would be distressed about Claire. If I was you, I’d be distressed too if my boyfriend was seeing a woman, especially one he wanted to date at one time.

He was cheated; it hurt him. But then he looked at you being hurt by the possibility of being cheated on, looked at you, not with empathy, but with negative judgment: being “immature”-

You are not in a good situation when you are in an intimate relationship with a man who is not empathetic to you and who negatively judges you for understandable, valid feelings.

In your post, I noticed you took responsibility for what you were not responsible for, apologizing to him for what you did NOT do wrong.

From your share, from beginning to end, your ex boyfriend reads like an unreliable, undependable man. And cruel at times. Like I wrote in the beginning of my reply to you: I hope you will meet a better man, because this one- even if he is better than men you knew before- is not good enough, I say.

Your thoughts, feelings?

anita